


Fifty-Nine Flowers' Worth of Dust

by keep_waking_up



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, M/M, Mutant Powers, Scars, Touch-Starved, Tragic Pasts, mild Self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_waking_up/pseuds/keep_waking_up
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen’s house is all stone and metal, and he has a garden he never goes in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifty-Nine Flowers' Worth of Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn-masquerade for this prompt:
> 
> Jensen is a pyrokinetic who can't control his power and has isolated himself so as not to hurt anyone. Jared is covered in various symbol-shaped scars that make him completely invulnerable (maybe self-inflicted, maybe forced on him by some evildoer). Point is, Jensen is lonely and grumpy and generally avoids intelligent life, and Jared seeks him out for some reason or other/stumbles across him. When Jensen discovers Jared can't be hurt by his little bursting-into-flames problem, Jensen latches onto Jared like a lifeline but works really hard to project an outwardly cool and collected couldn't-care-less-if-Jared-leaves facade. How well that works is up to the author.

When he was young, Jensen’s mother told him never to bite his nails.  It’s one of the only memories he has of her, so he resists the urge to disobey her.  He bites the skin around his nails bloody instead.  He tries to alternate so that he’s never chewing on scabs, but sometimes there are ten-finger days, in which he has to go through each finger and tear at the top layer of skin methodically until he feels better.

Jensen is on his third finger of the day when Mr. Weston calls and tells him he’s thrown out his back.  He can’t come in and work on Jensen’s garden for the next month or so.  He’s going to send someone else out instead.

Jensen starts on a fourth finger.  “Mr. Weston, I’m not sure I feel comfortable with that,” he says, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice.  He still worries about Mr. Weston coming out, and the man can heal himself of any injury within seconds.  It’s only through constant vigilance that they’ve never had to test it out.

“I know,” Mr. Weston replies soothingly.  “This isn’t one of my employees coming out, Mr. Ackles.  Jared’s something else entirely.  I can’t tell you the particulars of it, but there isn’t anything you could do to Jared that would hurt him.  He has even less to worry about then I do.”

That makes Jensen stop from pulling off a bit of his cuticle with his teeth.  “Are you sure?” he asks weakly.  He hopes Mr. Weston is because the alternative would be letting his garden go for a month and he doesn’t like the idea of that at all.

“Positive,” Mr. Weston affirms.  “Do I have your permission to send him out?”

Jensen hesitates, then looks out the window at his one true joy in life.  “I suppose,” he agrees, and then hangs up without waiting for Mr. Weston to say goodbye.     He starts in on the thumb of his left hand, and spends the next hour staring out the window as small droplets of blood bead the skin of each hand.

 

*

 

Jensen’s garden is possibly one of the best in the state.  Maybe in the country.  He wouldn’t know because no one’s ever seen it besides him and Mr. Weston, but Mr. Weston has told him that he’s never designed a finer garden, and Jensen trusts him in that.  Every time he looks at it, Jensen feels as if he’s in the middle of fairy land or in a particular nice dream.  He had a window seat built into his house just so he could sit and gaze out at it.  If he’s feeling particularly adventurous, he’ll sit out on his porch and breath in the sweet smell of all the flowers mingling together.

He’s not adventurous most days.

Jensen’s house is all stone and metal.  No wood.  Some fabric can’t be avoided, but he tries to limit it.  He has a bed, a chair, and his clothes, and that’s about all the fabric in the house, except for one pillow, which moves between the window seat and the porch with him.  It’s been mended innumerable times, but Jensen doesn’t have the heart to throw it out, despite how scraggly it is.

Jensen does have a lot of books, but not in paper.  He used to have paper copies, all shipped in used and extremely battered, but then the advent of ebooks solved his problem there.  Computers and other technology are still occasionally problematic, but the internet means nothing can ever be truly destroyed.  Jensen knows other people rue that, but he loves it.

Jensen has a garden he’s never been in, a metal house that’s always cold, and a collection of over a thousand books purchased from Barnes and Noble dot com.  He also has pyrokinetic abilities that he has no control over and constantly wounded fingers.   He knows the scent of burning flesh too well for his own comfort.

He counts himself lucky.  It could be a lot worse.

 

*

 

The first day Jared comes by, Jensen hides in his bedroom, on the opposite side of the house from the garden.  There are no curtains, of course, but Jensen doubts this new gardener will come looking for him.  He has to move into the bathroom anyway, where his flames bounce harmlessly against marble.

The second day Jared comes by, Jensen tries taking a bath to soothe himself.  He ends up boiling the water and being very glad that he can’t be burnt.  Still, it’s uncomfortable, so he has to get out and shiver his way dry.

The third day Jared comes by, Jensen’s curiosity is too much for him.  If he tries to deny himself, he’ll just end up burning something, so he places his pillow carefully behind his back and sits in his window seat chewing on his fingers as he waits for Jared to come.

Jared is punctual.  He pulls up in an old black truck loaded with gardening equipment.  He walks like he should be chewing on hay with a cowboy hat atop his head, like a slow southern summer.  Jensen wonders if his voice is equally thick and syrupy, if he speaks in a drawl like his walk.

Jared wears an old pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt.  He doesn’t even glance at the house once as he works.

He doesn’t look the fourth, fifth, or sixth time he visits either.

The seventh time, Jensen is feeling anxious and antsy and other negative A-words, like agitated, apprehensive, and alarmed.  He goes out on his porch first thing in the morning and can’t bring himself to go back in when Jared arrives.

Jared ignores him for the entire six hours he works on the garden.  He moves methodically from right side to left side, and Jensen follows him on his fingers, wiping the blood on his jeans because he can’t stand the taste.  It’s only at the end of those six hours, when Jensen is finally beginning to relax, that Jared strolls right up and plants himself in front of him.

“I heard that you can’t go into the garden,” Jared says, and his accent is thick and hot and everything Jensen thought it would be.  “Mr. Weston told me.  I thought you might like this, since you can’t.”

He holds out a delphinium, and Jensen can’t help reaching out to take it.  The instant his finger brushes it, though, it’s ash on the ground. 

Jared doesn’t look surprised or alarmed.  His fingers, which had been holding the flower, aren’t even singed.  “That’s too bad,” he says.  “Maybe next time.”

Jensen watches him go with a kind of awe.  Later, he sweeps up the ash from the flower and stores it inside a little jar.  Just in case there isn’t a next time.

 

*

 

The eighth visit, Jared gives him a peruvian lily.

The ninth visit, Jared gives him an anemone.

The tenth visit, Jared gives him a black-eyed susan.

Each of their ashes join the delphinium’s in the jar.

On the eleventh visit, Jensen realizes that it’s not actually the flowers he’s excited about.  Once upon a time, it would have been the stuff of dreams to actually hold one of his flowers.  Now, what he thinks about is the half-second each visit when the tip of one of his battered fingers will brush against the weathered skin of Jared’s own.

The ashes of a hydrangea join the others in the jar and Jensen dreams about the whisper of Jared’s fingertips.

The twelfth visit, Jensen hides inside his bathroom again.  He bites down on his lip because he’s already gone through all his fingers and he doesn’t want to do permanent harm.  He’s getting in too deep, pinning too much hope on a guy who only says a few sentences to him a week, a guy who he’s never even spoken to.

A guy who can’t be harmed by Jensen’s flames.

One time, to his shame, he tried.  He reached out with his flame on that tenth visit and it had devoured more than the flower.  It had licked up to the knuckle of Jared’s thumb.  His skin hadn’t even reddened.  He hadn’t even pulled away.

Jensen longs for him, craves him.  He’s never had someone he couldn’t hurt before.  He’s never gotten so close.  Words or no words, he’s never pinned as many hopes on anyone as he has on Jared.

He craves Jared too much to hide away during the thirteenth visit.  He resumes his place on the porch like nothing’s changed.

But Jared doesn’t ignore him.  He doesn’t get out of the truck and work on the garden right to left.  Instead, he ambles over to Jensen right away, and stands in front of him with his hands hooked in the belt-loops of his jeans.  Then he sighs and pulls up his sleeves.  There are long twisting white scars all across his arms; Jensen wants to reach out and touch them.

“Did them myself when I was fifteen,” Jared says.  “My baby sister was born when I was ten.  She would shoot out lightning when she was mad.  Didn’t know how to control it.  My parents got it tattooed, but the tattoos aren’t foolproof.  I wanted to make sure she could count on me, forever.”

Jensen’s father gave him to the government.  Jensen’s mother died.  Jensen doesn’t remember if he even had a sister or a brother.

“I just wanted you to know,” Jared continues, and something makes Jensen look up into his eyes for the first time.  They are slanted and hazel and honest.  “Wanted you to know you could count on me too.”

He goes back to his work after that.  Jensen just stares at him as he pulls out weeds and waters and trims.  Jared’s muscles bulge as he works.  Jensen can see it much better with his sleeves rolled up.  Jensen likes it a bit too much.

When Jared’s done, he walks up to Jensen and holds out a lisianthus.  It burns like all the rest.  Jared turns to walk away, and it’s only then that Jensen’s able to stutter out, “thank you.”  He stares at the flecks of ash on the ground.  His face is burning red.

Jared’s footsteps pause for a second.  “You’re welcome,” he says, accent thick.  Then he gets in his truck and drives away.

The lisianthus’s ashes join the others in the jar.

 

*

 

The twentieth visit, Jared gives him a pansy.  He doesn’t leave after Jensen burns it.  Instead, he stays and says, “you can ask, you know.”  He shifts from one foot to the other.  “Ask me to touch you.  How long’s it been since you were touched?”

Jensen wants to be cool.  He wants to say the right thing, the perfect thing, the thing that will make Jared want to stay.  But Jensen isn’t perfect or cool, so he just croaks out, “long” and then falls silent again, head hanging in shame.

Maybe if it was wooden, the bench would creak as Jared sits down on it.  But it’s stone and it does not.  “Give me your hand,” Jared tells him and, unthinkingly, Jensen follows his order.  Jared enfolds his hand in his own and rests them both on his thigh.  Then he just sits there and hums a tuneless song, while Jensen freezes up and tries to remember how to breathe.

_In and out_ , he tells himself.  It’s only hand.

_In and out_ , he tells himself.  Jared’s hand is like leather, but warmer.  It’s like leather, but softer.  It’s like leather, but better.  Like leather, but alive.

_In and out_ , he tells himself.  Holding hands isn’t like the books say.  Holding hands is euphoric, is wonderful.  Holding hands is like how the books describe sex, like something fantastic and beautiful and meaningful.

_In and out_ , he tells himself.  His hand and Jared’s are linked, and he feels like the rest of them are too, like they are just one entity, connected by one central point of feeling.

_In and out_ , he tells himself.  He’s crying.

Jared is comforting him.  “Shhh, shhh, it’s alright,” Jared says, and Jensen lurches forward and kisses him, awkward and clumsy and nothing like in the movies.  Their lips press together for one, two, three seconds and then Jared pulls away.

“Not yet,” he says.  “You’re not ready for that yet.  This is enough for now.”  He sits there on the porch with Jensen until Jensen stops crying, and then he squeezes Jensen’s hand once, lets him go, and drives away.

 

*

 

On the twenty-eighth visit, they kiss again, chastely.  Jared smoothes back Jensen’s hair from his forehead and tells him he’s beautiful.

On the forty-first visit, they spend an hour making out on the porch bench, until Jensen’s back aches and his lips are swollen from something other than his own biting.

On the forty-fourth visit, Jared gives him a pair of gloves and looks pointedly at the dozens of tiny scars littering Jensen’s fingers.  Jensen puts them on and tries to stop from biting.

On the fifty-second visit, Jared hugs Jensen close and slides his hand down into Jensen’s pants.  It takes less than two minutes for Jensen to cry out and spill in his jeans, whimpering into the crook of Jared’s neck.

On the fifty-third visit, Jensen gets to do the same.

On the sixtieth visit, Jared gives Jensen a lilac from the garden.  “The meaning,” he says, looking a bit uncomfortable, the way he almost never does.  “It’s something about love.”  He pauses.  “I love you,” he says, as if the first part wasn’t clear.

On that same sixtieth visit, Jensen takes the flower from Jared’s hands and it doesn’t burn.  He holds it in awe, then pulls out the jar from under the bench, filled with fifty-nine flowers’ worth of dust.  “I love you too,” he says, and then lays the lilac delicately on top of all that ash and closes the lid.


End file.
